


Life, Death and the Bits In Between

by Idenna



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Coda, Episode Related, Episode: s05e14 My Bloody Valentine, Gen, Unpleasant imagery including descriptions of injury
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-11-29
Updated: 2011-11-29
Packaged: 2017-10-26 16:26:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,047
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/285416
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Idenna/pseuds/Idenna
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A coda to Season 5 Episode 14, in which Castiel finds himself worrying more about the other Winchester, feels feelings and is not as ineffectual as he fears.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Life, Death and the Bits In Between

**Author's Note:**

> This is a revised version of something I wrote early last year...because I only just found the other half of it. This is what happens when you label your folders "stuff", "things" and "miscellaneous". >.>;
> 
> Strange things happened to the formatting when I copied this over. I think I got them all, but if you spot any italicised bits that look like poetry by William Shatner, please tell me so I can fix it.

The screaming stops for good somewhere around two in the afternoon on the second day. Brittle whimpers escape around the edges of the panic room door for a while longer, but they fade with the light until the only sounds left are Dean’s fingernails scratching absently at the label of his whiskey bottle and the tired rasp of his breath. Eventually the scratching stops too and Castiel feels Dean sinking into unconsciousness, awkwardly slumped against a wall with his arms wrapped tensely around himself.

He looks... _small_ like this. Painfully mortal; still in yesterday’s shirt with little spots of dried blood near the collar, bruise blossoming on his forehead, dirt and grease staining his jeans, smelling of old sweat and cheap drink.

Castiel heard him the night before, hopeless and alone in Bobby’s yard, calling softly to his Father for help. Such a tiny prayer it was; a delicate, fragile little wisp of longing, but genuine. Something rather like shame had stayed his feet - he had no answers for Dean, and suspected that his Father would have nothing to say to Dean either.

Castiel remains by the door as he has since they brought Sam down into Bobby’s basement, patient and unmoving save for the occasional furrowing of his brow as he strains to hear through the layer of wards and sigils painted on the walls. He does not like  _not knowing._

Dean’s steady breathing and the faint thump of his heartbeat reassure him of the man’s safety but he worries for Sam too.

Sam had saved them – him and Dean and what remained of that town, and they had thanked him by locking him up to work the filth out of his system alone. He screamed for his brother, for Castiel, for Bobby, even his father and the long-dead girl who haunts his dreams; for  _ anyone  _ to help him for hours after his voice should have given out. That seems unjust, even to Castiel’s newly developing sense of human justice, and so he does what he can and maintains his vigil with one ear trained for danger and the other searching for signs of movement on the other side of the wall that repels him so entirely.

Some time after the sun rises on the third day, Bobby calls down to them to open the damn door and check on Sam before he starves to death. Dean snorts himself awake, squints in the murky light and staggers stiffly to his feet, half-heartedly brushing dust from his sleeves as he moves to unlock the hatch. Castiel steps aside to allow the door to swing open and feels his stomach wrench at the mess inside the little chamber. There’s blood – lots of it, on the armchair, on the door and mostly on Sam, who’s still asleep on the floor. His fingertips are red and black with it and fragments of rust and fingernail jut out at strange angles from where he’s torn fruitlessly at the steel. He’s clawed at his throat and his chest, too, and as Dean bends down to shake his brother’s shoulder Castiel watches his nose wrinkle at the stink of vomit on his breath.

Gradually, his huge frame shaking from the effort, Sam is coaxed to his feet and led upstairs to fresh air, fresh clothes and the promise of a shower. Though his voice is hoarse and his fingers tremble he manages to tell Dean that he stinks like ass, and shoves him off in the direction of the bathroom as Bobby gives him a glass of water, a drinking straw and a friendly pat on the arm before muttering something about Jesus and look at those damn fingers and wheels himself away to find the first aid kit.

Always suspicious, that man. Castiel can feel the holy water from the other side of the kitchen. 

Sam takes a careful sip and flinches as the water agitates his torn throat and makes him cough.

“Cas, did...did Bobby...? Am I still...?”

“He did,” Castiel replies, and wishes he hadn’t as hurt flashes across Sam’s face. “There is holy water in that glass, but your discomfort stems from injury rather than Heaven’s wrath. The demon smell is gone.”

“Oh. And, um, thanks.”

“He does not mean to cause offence.”

“Yeah, I know. I just...” Sam pushes a hand through his hair, jerks it away violently as a torn nail catches and goes back to eyeballing his water glass and its cheerful red striped bendy straw with distaste. He looks so tired.    
  
_Is_ so tired, and Castiel hurts for him and that’s still new and strange but it’s real, and he’s not quite sure what to do with it.

Castiel takes a seat at the little table across from Sam, reaches out to place a hand over Sam’s ripped up one and fixes him with an unblinking stare that Dean has often warned him makes him look like a ‘creeper’. Sam looks a little panicky and tries to draw his hand away, but he is weak and Castiel’s grip is stronger than his vessel’s frame belies.

“Cas? What’re you – dude, let me go.”

“Please drink the water, Sam.”

“Okay, but let me go first.” Castiel’s grip remains firm.

“Please drink the water, Sam. You need it.”

Slowly, with a grimace, Sam lowers his chapped lips and swallows again. He still makes a face, but does not cough and splutter. Castiel releases his hand and slumps down in his chair a little.

“I am sorry, Sam.”

Sam quirks an eyebrow.

“What for?”

“I...I thought I could ease your suffering, but even that is beyond my power.”

Sam stares at his bloody fingers like they belong to someone else and smiles awkwardly.

“If you really want to ease my suffering, you could pour me some of that coffee. God, my head is – sorry.”

Castiel offers a noncommittal grunt as he opens and closes cupboard doors searching for a mug.

“He’s not that petty, Sam.”

The angel places a steaming green cup gently in front of him and quietly reclaims his seat.

“Oh? Cool. Thanks. For, ah...yeah.”

They sit in silence as Sam uses his palms to move the straw from the water glass to his coffee.

“Cas, where...where am I gonna go when I die? ...Wait. I’m sorry, I shouldn’t ask you things like that.”

That doesn’t mean he doesn’t want to know. Castiel stares, considers.

“You are worried.” It’s not a question, never is when Castiel already knows the answer.

Sam smiles weakly, dishevelled and gaunt even in the warm dusty sunlight.

“Can you blame me? I mean, I – I’ve done some pretty bad things, man. I’ve killed things, _people_ even, and even though I didn’t want to do those things, I get the impression that Heaven’s not as big on the whole absolution through penance process as the churches say they are.”

The angel tilts his head at the shrewd observation. Sam is right; the Gates of Heaven do not open for halfhearted deathbed confessions after a lifetime of sin. Still, the longer he spends with the Winchesters - and perhaps this is his creeping new weakness speaking, but perhaps not - the less Castiel is convinced of the younger brother’s inherent wickedness. He is just a man, frightened and wretched and shunned by the realm he’s tried so hard all of his short life to please. It saddens Castiel to watch his faith fade.

Sam is staring at his hands, huge shoulders hunched as he waits for a response.

“It is true,” Castiel offers reluctantly, then wishes he hasn’t as Sam lets out a shaky breath.

“Thought so. So I guess that’s it for me, huh? Probably should’ve twigged since every angel I’ve met tried to kill me on sight and all, except for Satan, who wants to _wear_ me."

Castiel’s mind races to find a suitable analogy. “Yes. Like an angel condo, as your brother puts it.”

Sam half snorts, half sobs. “Cond _om._ But it amounts to the same thing. Cas, you should be a little more careful throwing around expressions you pick up from my brother.”

“Oh. Con _d_ _ om. _ What’s the difference?”

Sam blanches even further.

“One’s a semi-detached house and the other’s a prophylactic.”

Castiel’s brow creases as he files this vital information away for later retrieval.

“I see. What is a prophylactic? And why would you rather be thought of as one instead of a house?”

Sam pins him with a God Give Me Strength to Usher Your Offspring Past Sex Ed Look.

“It’s...never mind. Let’s just talk about something else, huh?”

Silence descends once more, wherein Sam examines his fingernails, Castiel watches him and wishes he could do  _something_ to ease the pain he’s feeling, and they both listen for sounds of Bobby or Dean heading to the kitchen with antiseptic and an excuse to change the subject. They are not that lucky. Eventually, Castiel speaks.

“I...wonder sometimes too, Sam.”

Sam blinks tiredly, fumbling once again with the cup he can’t close his fingers around.

“’Bout what, Cas?”

“Where I will go; what will happen when I die. I don’t remember what happened the first time. I existed, and then I existed again somewhere else.”

“Is there some sort of special angel Heaven? Or do you just... _ stop? _ ”

Sam is staring at him. Castiel stares back at him reproachfully.

“Heaven is Heaven, Sam. There is no segregation. And I do not know. The voices of my brothers vanish when they are slain. Wherever they go, it’s not here. I do not want to follow them. And there is the matter of my living brothers, who have pushed me from their ranks. I doubt they’d permit me to return in any form, even if I could. That doesn’t leave a lot of options.”

When he woke up on the floor of the panic room earlier that morning, aching, bloody and worse, Sam had not envisioned spending part of his day talking an angel through an existential crisis.

“But you’re an angel, and less of a dick than most. You actually seem to  _care_ about what happens to Daddy’s little mud monkeys. That’s got to count.” Sam gives Castiel the best reassuring look he can muster with a monstrous hangover and minimal coffee. “You really think He would let you just fade away? Or send you downstairs? No way, Cas. He’s got your back.”

Castiel looks up at him, and his brows are drawn again as he tries to process this unexpected piece of kindness from a being who should be no authority on the subject.

“Why, then, do you think God does not have yours? You’re a good man, Sam.”

“How the hell could you call  _ me  _ a good man?” Sam snaps, gesturing to his filthy clothes as if to remind the angel that about half of the blood isn’t even his, and how it got there in the first place.

“You are a good man,” Castiel replies, with simple honesty that makes Sam’s lip tremble. “And when you die, my Father will recognise you.”

“Right. I’m not even baptised, Cas. It was never all that high on Dad’s to-do list. Even if you’re right and I don’t deserve to go downstairs, don’t you need to be baptised to get out of limbo? So God knows your name?”

Castiel heaves a long-suffering sigh.

“What have I told you about your human Bible, Sam? It’s full of mistranslations, mishearings and flagrant untruths. Also, I believe that the Pope recently abolished the concept of limbo. However, if the ritual would reassure you...”

The angel reaches across the table, hovers his hand above Sam’s cup of coffee briefly to sanctify it, then dips a finger in and drags the finger across Sam’s forehead.

“Sam Winchester. There.”

Castiel withdraws his hand and Bobby chooses that moment to wheel himself into the kitchen with a first aid kit on his lap.

“Come on kid, let’s get you cleaned up. You’re gonna have to swing by the hospital later, I don’t have a tetanus shot just lying around.”

The sharp tang of disinfectant bites through the air as Bobby gets to work, and if Sam’s eyes are tearing up a bit, it’s just because it stings like a bitch. Nothing more.


End file.
